Month: November 2016

If you’ve come here to read about the Internet of Things (IoT) before, I’d wager you’ve heard a fair deal about it already and what it can do. There are endless possibilities out there right now and endless applications for what could be, but notice that’s the majority of what you’ll hear — possibility.

As of right now, the IoT is mostly just hype, as it has been for the past few years. We don’t have roads connected with our vehicles. We don’t have our alarm clocks talking to our coffee makers or our oven talking to our microwave. We don’t have many commercial applications at all, actually. What we do have is pockets of IoT with both commercial and business applications around our world.

So, is all this just hopeful thinking? Are we fooling ourselves with thinking of how important this will be in the future? I’d have to say absolutely not. The fact is that at this very moment, we’re mostly in the investing and developing stage. Hundreds of companies out there are extremely interested in putting this future technology to use to help with productivity and, as the technology becomes more secure and is developed further, we’ll start to see more and more commercial, everyday products with the IoT incorporated into them.

To put it into more recent terms, look at computers. We started with all computers being basically the same. They functioned for a small set of purposes. They were big, expensive, and didn’t have any real use for the average consumer. Time passed though and they started to become more diverse, from different looks and different functions to entirely different operating systems.

The world changed around the computer as it got smaller, faster, and began having uses for more than just big companies and the military. The average consumer now started having a reason to buy and it only spurred the technology on more. After that, things really took off and, rather than one computer per household, we’re all sitting here with our phones in hand, tablets in our bags, and laptops right beside them. We’ve got a multitude of computers with a diverse range of functions and the same will be true of the IoT in time.

With time comes change, and the change that we’re going to be seeing in the next few years will be, as always, faster, smaller, and more diverse. As it stands, we’re currently in the early years of the IoT. The hype is real and it’s all around us of what is possible and what we can and will be doing in just a few years time. We’re entering a world of interconnected devices — smart homes, efficient building, connected infrastructure, and more.